


Volunteer

by TrueColours



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: AR Febuwhump (Alex Rider), Angst, Emotional Whump, Gen, PTSD, Take me instead, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueColours/pseuds/TrueColours
Summary: Why coerce somebody when you have a volunteer?
Relationships: Alex Rider & Freddy Grey
Comments: 20
Kudos: 49
Collections: AR Febuwhump 2021





	Volunteer

**Author's Note:**

> AR Febuwhump Day 5, prompt: Take me instead.

Most people would have had to wait months for an appointment with John Crawley of the Royal and General Bank – if they even knew he existed at all. But then, Freddy Grey was not most people.

He must have been even better trained than they had believed, to unearth the information that enabled him to contact Crawley. But Crawley had decided to arrange a meeting anyway. It was possible that there was a leak that would need to be plugged. It was possible that Freddy had more intelligence to reveal about Nightshade. Either way, the best way to find out would be to tug on the thread. So the boy was in his office, sitting on the plain grey Ikea armchair, barred with light from the window with its half-lowered plastic blind.

‘I don’t drink that stuff,’ he said when offered cola. So different, in some ways, from the boy who had sat in this same room over a year ago.

‘You’re going to use him again, aren’t you?’ Freddy said. ‘Alex Rider.’

‘Special Operations does not employ minors,’ Crawley answered. This office was where they brought people who still thought the building was a bank. Freddy might know different, but that didn’t mean Crawley was going start discussing the organisation’s most damning secrets.

‘Oh yeah?’ Freddy asked. ‘Why was he involved with my case, then? Why was he in Gibraltar?’

‘Mrs Jones became involved in the Gibraltar affair without the knowledge or participation of Special Operations,’ Crawley said, truthfully.

‘He said it was always the last time. Always the last time. And not always you…except for how it was _always_ you.’

Freddy seemed to have no filter. He often spoke in non-sequiturs. He alternated between staring directly at Crawley and glancing away around the room. He kicked his heels against the chair. He looked very young.

 _If this is a scheme to get some sort of incriminating evidence about Alex Rider_ , Crawley thought, _it’s a poor one_.

It was looking more and more likely that this mission would be Alex’s last…or one of his last. Always the possibility of one, maybe two more, but they had to be winding down towards the end of this episode. Alex was closer to sixteen than fifteen. Most of the major players in the game now knew his name, if not his face. And his psychological profile had shifted. In Crawley’s opinion, he ought never to have been deployed again after his independent involvement in the Damien Cray case. He was no longer pliable. He was volatile. He was too experienced and showed too much initiative. It was only a matter of time.

‘Mrs Jones is now head of Special Operations,’ he said. ‘Whatever policies were followed by her predecessor have now been reviewed.’

‘Mrs Jones was the one who sent him to find me,’ Freddy said. ‘There’s no way out. He said so.’

There was always a way out. It was just more often death than retirement. It was regrettable that MI6 would not be able to make effective use of Alex Rider any longer – and even more regrettable was the fact that, even if another teenage agent were trained and deployed, it would lack the same element of surprise. Crawley missed the excitement of the Stormbreaker case – knowing that for once the intelligence services were ahead, with a threat that could not be anticipated. Now there was a whole crime organisation specialising in child agents. MI6 would have to innovate again. The arms race ground on.

‘I don’t really see why he minds it,’ Freddy said, ‘but my counsellor says that I don’t have to empathise in order to sympathise. We can’t understand everybody’s point of view all the time, and we have to respect them anyway. Well, Alex doesn’t want to be a spy. Imagine if everybody did – I suppose that wouldn’t make a lot of sense.’

He kicked his heels against the chair some more. The grey fabric was pale. It took a dark mark. Crawley winced.

‘Can I tell you something, Mr Crawley?’

‘You can tell me why you’re here.’ Crawley pushed his chair halfway back from his desk, indicating with body language that this interview would have an end, sooner rather than later.

‘There’s something wrong with me. At least, something that my parents and my counsellor wouldn’t be happy about if they knew. I…miss Nightshade, I think. I mean, I like having a family, and hobbies and toys, and I even attend school one day a week now…but I miss Nightshade too.’

‘A common symptom of trauma…’ Crawley began, but Freddy scoffed.

‘They use that word whenever I like anything that _they_ wouldn’t like if they were me. But some people must like being spies and assassins, or they wouldn’t choose it as a job. _You_ chose it, didn’t you? _You_ must like it.’

Crawley _did_ like the job. It was right there in his file. If Alex’s psychological profile was suboptimal, then so was his. Sadistic. Addicted to danger. Who wasn’t, after a while, in this line of work? Crawley was honest with himself about it. It was the people who weren’t who went off the deep end.

‘I didn’t mind it,’ Freddy said, ‘so, next time you need a teenage operative, send me instead.’

Half of Crawley was astounded. The other half was not surprised at all. A traumatised, indoctrinated child, trying to adjust to civilian life…it was to be expected.

‘I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about,’ he said, in case of listening devices. Freddy sneered, suddenly looking exactly his age, while his feet still childishly swung and kicked.

‘I’d probably be better at it than Alex,’ he said. ‘I mean, he did amazingly for somebody with no formal training, but still, you’d be better off with an expert.’

Would they, Crawley wondered? It was Alex’s extraordinary initiative that had saved the day so many times, and initiative needed the soil of wide experience on which to grow. On the other hand, nine times out of ten, training trumped ingenuity or daring or whatever other heroics an agent might think to try. Training was ingenuity, replicated. Training was reliable. And it was impossible to get a _trained_ child, because…

No. It was horrifying even to consider this. He shouldn’t be tempted. MI6 might be morally grey, but still, the reason they did what they did was for the security of the nation. To make sure that the majority of children didn’t _have_ to grow up as soldiers or spies.

The majority of children. And if, to ensure the safety of the majority, they needed one here or there…

‘It’s a good solution,’ Freddy said. ‘I’m respecting what Alex wants and what I want. And look, I’m just saying…if you’re going to ruin someone’s life anyway…you might as well pick the person who volunteered. Take me instead.’ 


End file.
